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[Power of the Church] Power of the Government

I’ve discussed before on this blog, what the differences are between America Churchianity and British Churchianity. I can’t think of a better example of why separation of church and state is a good thing, a thing invented by Christians than this little gem by the perspicacious Martin Turner:

“Richard Dawkins’s followers will no doubt be quick to claim this is another example of the heinous effect of ‘the God delusion’. But they would be wrong. Under charity law, the Church of England has to diligently pursue all of its debtors, and, coupled with the laws on ‘chancel repair liability’ which date back to Valor Ecclesiasticus in 1535, they have no choice.

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What lunatic changed the law in that way? (You know the answer to this one, but, in case you don’t, the legislation is the Land Registration Act 2002.)

Since the Church of England is powerless to extricate itself from a situation which bankrupts ordinary people and brings the church, and thus the entire Christian faith, into disrepute, the government ought to have intervened to simply cancel chancel liability. This would free the Church of England to pursue grants and even Lottery money. This is in fact what the Law Commission and the Church of England Synod recommended in the 1980s.”

At the time when this hit the headlines I was not aware of these facts. I’m glad I reserved my judgement.

Of course, little mention in all this is given to the corrupting influence of state and social establishment of religion. I say “social establishment” because in the USA and elsewhere on the American continent, there is a legal separation of church and state, none observed so fervently as in Mexico, where clergymen may not wear any distinctive clothes in public; yet still, in all these countries it is formally acceptable and almost requisite to baptize, wed and be buried in a church at the very least.

This is pure social sanction.

Church acquiescence with political or social privilege is a corrupting influence on the body politic and society, as well as it is on religion. Let’s call churches businesses, which is what they are, tax them, and let them fend for themselves in the open market. And, of course, stop teaching children in state-run schools that going to the church of one’s choice is a good idea; stop having advertising for religious holidays. Etc.

Um, we do have an established religion here in the US. Originally the constitution prohibited congress from establishing a religion, but this morphed into a post-modern spin on separation of church and state (which is entirely distinct from the identically named, separatist concept of 17th century England). The new version says that we can establish government funded Islamic charter schools because Separation of Church and State doesn’t preclude unity of Mosque and State. Then there is the notion that everything evil and non-Christian must be condoned and promoted by the state lest we commit the sin of being a Christian theocracy.

So yes, America is a theocracy, but the religion is godless depravity.